Category: 3D Printing Materials
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How Formula 1 Is Using Carbon Fiber PEEK 3D Printing to Cut Brake Duct Manufacturing Costs by 68%
In 2020, a Formula 1 team was fined €400,000 and lost 15 championship points over a component most spectators never see: a brake duct. Just four years later, another Formula 1 team began applying high-temperature 3D printing to manufacture brake cooling ducts using carbon fiber reinforced PEEK, replacing a complicated carbon fiber lamination process with…
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Does Your 3D Printed Part Really Need PEEK? A Guide to High-Performance Polymer Selection
PEEK is one of the most capable engineering thermoplastics available. But its exceptional properties come with manufacturing challenges. Before specifying PEEK for an industrial 3D printed component, it is worth understanding what makes the material special, why it can be difficult to print, and when an alternative polymer might make more sense. In This Article…
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PLA 3D Printing Filament: Properties, Applications, Advantages, and Limitations
PLA (polylactic acid) is the most widely used material in desktop 3D printing, and for good reason. It’s affordable, easy to print, available in virtually every color and finish, and capable of producing highly accurate parts with minimal warping. From rapid prototyping and educational projects to functional jigs and fixtures, PLA offers an accessible entry…
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How to 3D Print Complex PEKK-A Parts with Supports on the 22 IDEX
High-temperature 3D printing becomes considerably more interesting when the part stops looking like a simple block with a few holes. Curved surfaces, deep overhangs, internal features, and irregular geometry can make support generation and part orientation just as important as the material and printer settings. A complex connecting bracket provides a good example. With very…
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How to Print PEKK-A on the 22 IDEX: A Practical Guide to High-Temperature FFF
PEKK is one of those engineering polymers where the printer, material preparation, chamber environment, build surface, and part design all have to work together. On a high-temperature system such as the 22 IDEX, PEKK-A can be a relatively straightforward material to print when the process is properly configured. What Is PEKK and Why Is It…
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On-Demand 3D Printing: Solving the Obsolete Spare Parts Crisis
In 2015, Deutsche Bahn got into 3D printing and printed a coat hook. It was a simple plastic component, hardly the kind of part that gets anyone excited about advanced manufacturing. Ten years later, that simple experiment had evolved into more than 200,000 3D printed parts across more than 1,000 applications. Headrests, fan wheels, lamp brackets,…
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PSU vs. ULTEM 9085: Which High-Temp Polymer Do You Need?
PSU vs. ULTEM™ 9085: Which High-Temp Polymer Do You Need? For years, ULTEM™ 9085 has been the default recommendation whenever engineers need a high-performance FDM material. It earned that reputation through extensive aerospace adoption and well-established certification pathways. But if your application does not require those specific certifications, another engineering polymer deserves serious consideration: PSU.…
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Why Railway Operators Are Replacing Obsolete Spare Parts with Additive Manufacturing
If you want to understand where industrial additive manufacturing delivers measurable business value, railway maintenance is one of the strongest examples. The technology is not replacing mass production. Instead, it solves a problem that conventional manufacturing was never designed to handle: supporting fleets that remain in service for decades after their original supply chains have…
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How to Reliably Print ULTEM™ 9085 with High Temperature FDM
Printing polyetherimide (PEI), commonly known by the ULTEM™ trade name, requires far more than selecting the correct extrusion temperature. Moisture control, thermal stability, machine preparation, slicing strategy, and process verification all contribute to part quality. When these variables are managed together, high-temperature FDM can produce functional components suitable for demanding industrial environments. Why Is Filament…
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Your Filament Is Already Wet. Here Is What to Do About It.
A production-grade protocol for moisture removal in high-performance FFF filament polymers, from the physics of vacuum drying to the transfer window before moisture reabsorption begins. Why Moisture Is the Primary Failure Mode, Not Your Slicer When a high-performance FFF print fails, the instinct is to chase slicer parameters, revisit extrusion multipliers, or blame machine calibration.…
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ESD-Safe Plastics and 3D Printing: What Engineers Actually Need to Know
Most people never notice static electricity until they feel a small shock from a doorknob. What many don’t realize is that those tiny zaps or Electrostatic discharge (ESD) can involve thousands of volts. Meanwhile, modern electronic components can be damaged by voltages that are far too small for humans to detect. This invisible threat has…
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How a Billion-Dollar Patent War Created Nylon 6
From toothbrush bristles to aerospace components, nylon has become one of the most important engineering materials ever developed. Yet one of the biggest success stories in polymer science began with a clever patent workaround that ultimately transformed manufacturing around the world. The Race to Replace Silk in the 1930s During the 1930s, silk dominated the…
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How ULTEM 3D Printing Is Rewriting the Rules of CubeSat Design
Launching hardware into orbit has always been expensive, but the economics of modern spaceflight are making lightweight engineering more important than ever. With launch costs approaching $7,000 per kilogram on rideshare missions, every gram matters. That reality has pushed aerospace engineers toward industrial additive manufacturing, where high-performance thermoplastics are helping redefine how CubeSat components are…
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How 3D Printing Is Winning the Drone Industry’s War Against Weight
Since the earliest days of aviation, every aircraft including drone crafts has operated under the same equation: lift versus weight. Every fastener, bracket, overlap, and unnecessary gram reduces flight time, payload capacity, and range. For more than a century, aerospace engineers have fought this battle one gram at a time. Today, additive manufacturing is changing…
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Why ULTEM™ PEI Changed Industrial 3D Printing: A Brief History
In the late 1970s, GE Plastics invested roughly $50 million into developing a single polymer. Adjusted for inflation, that represents nearly a quarter of a billion dollars spent on one material. The result was ULTEM™ polyetherimide (PEI), a high-performance engineering plastic that would eventually become indispensable in aerospace, medical devices, and industrial manufacturing. Today, ULTEM…
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Oil & Gas Downhole Success: Why 3D Printed PEEK Parts Are the New Standard
The future of additive manufacturing in oil and gas is no longer experimental. High-performance polymers like PEEK are moving from research labs into critical field applications where components must survive extreme temperatures, crushing pressures, and harsh chemical environments. Why a Small Backup Ring Can Make or Break an Oilfield Operation Imagine a component no larger…
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What is PPSU Plastic? Properties, Uses & Benefits
Most plastics fail quickly when exposed to extreme heat, pressure, and chemicals. Put them through repeated steam sterilization cycles and they warp, crack, discolor, or completely fall apart. But one material keeps showing up in environments where failure simply is not acceptable: PPSU. Polyphenylsulfone, better known as PPSU, has become one of the most important…
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NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Now Flies Nearly 200 3D Printed Parts
In just over a decade, NASA’s Orion spacecraft program has transformed additive manufacturing from a small flight experiment into a major part of spacecraft production. Orion’s first flight test in 2014 carried only four 3D printed components. Artemis I, the uncrewed lunar mission launched in 2022, reportedly flew with more than 100 additively manufactured parts.…
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How 3D Printed Drones Are Reshaping Modern Manufacturing and Warfare
For more than a century, military manufacturing followed the same blueprint: giant factories, centralized supply chains, specialized tooling, and production cycles measured in years. That model is now being disrupted by something radically different. Desktop 3D printed drones. The Rise of the Decentralized Military Factory Across Ukraine, thousands of consumer-grade 3D printers are operating continuously…
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The PPA Power Move: From Automotive to Industrial 3D Printing
High temperature nylon, commonly known as PPA or polyphthalamide, did not emerge from a laboratory experiment looking for futuristic plastics. It was born out of failure. As automotive engines became smaller, hotter, and more powerful during the 1990s, traditional nylon materials reached their breaking point. What followed was a major shift in polymer engineering that…